By IANS,
New Delhi : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is in a tizzy over the Rs.26 million (Rs.2.6 crore) that reportedly went missing on Christmas Day from its national headquarters. Though party workers were Tuesday furiously speculating about who could be the culprit, the spokesperson said accounts were being “reconciled”.
“We are reconciling our accounts,” BJP’s national spokesperson Ravi Shanker Prasad told reporters when asked about the reported theft. He said party vice president Ramdas Agarwal would supervise the reconciliation of the accounts.
However, Prasad neither confirmed nor denied reports of the theft from a chest in a small room close to BJP president Rajnath Singh’s office at the party’s national headquarters in the heart of the capital.
Prasad said: “The reports (about the missing cash) in the media are exaggerated, speculative and baseless.”
Earlier, Shyam Jaju, who is in charge of the office, had told IANS: “The news (of the theft) is false. Nothing of the sort has happened.”
But, in private, members of the staff at the party office said that the theft had taken place and added that Rs.26 million had been removed. The money was reportedly put in the safe Dec 24 and removed the next day.
No complaint has been made to the police, but sources claimed a private detective agency had been engaged to probe the theft. They also said the party was not in a position to report the theft to the police as it would then have to disclose the source of the cash.
Party circles suspect the theft to be an inside job since neither the safe nor the room was broken into.
Rumours about the theft are flying thick and fast in the BJP office, with some insiders claiming that the disappearance of the money could even be a fallout of bickering among members of the office staff.